Month: January 2017

Smoking costs the NHS 5bn a year and thats just the UK! Worldwide, over 6 million people die every year as a result of smoking tobacco. So before you light up your next cigarette, take a look through our top 25 facts that may make you think twice…

25. Within just 25 minutes of inhaling cigarette smoke, your body starts to undergo changes that increase your risk of cancer it only takes one cigarette for this change to take place.

In Antarctica, you can experience maddening silence, the thunder of calving icebergs and cracking glaciers, deafening gales, weeks of darkness, rare sunny days, and deceptive calm. One of the harshest environments on Earth, Antarctica is both beautiful and completely unforgiving toward those who venture into its vast emptiness. Indifferent to human suffering and despair, the worlds southernmost continent readily collects the ghosts of explorers. Here are 10 perplexing fatalities from a continent of surprise death and insane extremes.

Featured image via Wikimedia

10 Edgar Evans

Photo via Wikimedia

In 2002, scientists from the University of Waikato were surprised to confirm the presence of anthrax in samples taken from the stables at Robert Falcon Scotts base camp at Cape Evans. The stables were built in 1911, prior to Scotts doomed expedition to the South Pole. They housed the Manchurian ponies and Himalayan mules that the expedition brought to assist them in their exploration. Anthrax was endemic in Asia at that time, so these equines are assumed to have carried the deadly bacteria to Antarctica.

This new evidence has renewed speculation that Edgar Evans, a member of Scotts expedition, may actually have died from anthrax poisoning, a conclusion originally reached in 1986 by Canadian doctor R.C.F. Falckh. The strongest and most cheerful man in the party, Evanss mental and physical health began a mysterious decline, presumably after slipping and hitting his head on the slopes of the Beardmore Glacier. As his strength ebbed, and he began to delay the others, the expeditions doctor, Edward Wilson, believed that Evans must have injured his brain by a fall, but this statement implies that the fall was never actually witnessed.

Nonetheless, Evans was believed to have died from this supposed head injury, with scurvy, dehydration, and high altitude quickening his death. However, the symptoms exhibited by Evansaccelerating tiredness and mental confusionare consistent with anthrax exposure. Scott also noted that Evanss mood and behavior had already begun to change before they started to descend the Beardmore Glacier. Additionally, Evans had cut his hand in another clumsy, uncharacteristic accident.

In mid-February, Scott wrote: After lunch and Evans still not appearing, we looked out to see him still afar off . . . I was first to reach the poor man and was shocked by his appearance; he was on his knees with clothes disarrayed, hands uncovered and frostbitten, and a wild look in his eyes. Evans died hours later. To date, the site of his grave has never been found. An autopsy of Evanss body, should it ever be found, could still confirm whether or not he was a victim of anthrax, even after a century. It would be dehydrated but otherwise well-preserved.

9 Xavier Mertz

Photo via Wikimedia

You may know the dramatic account of Douglas Mawsons miraculous survival against all odds when his attempt to reach the South Pole ended in disaster. Mawson, sole survivor of that ill-fated 1912 expedition, was lauded as a hero for over 100 years, until historian David Day caused a media storm in Australia by suggesting that Mawsons incredible tale of loyalty to his dying friend, Xavier Mertz, might not add up after all.

Mawson and Mertz lost half their supplies when expedition member Belgrave Ninnis plunged into a crevasse with his sleigh. Mawsons journal suggests that he thought they might be able to make it back to base on starvation rations, but Mertz grew delirious and died on January 7. Days hypothesis is that Mawson decided to cut the rations, believing that the less experienced Mertz would die first, allowing the more hardened Mawson to take the rest of the food for himself. Critics have pointed out that this is an unprovable and rather convoluted plot. It would also have been extremely risky, since Mawson himself suffered terribly from starvation and exhaustion. At one point, the soles of his feet detached entirely, forcing him to tape them back on over the bubbling mass of pus underneath.

More interesting is the subject of what happened after Mertz died. Ninnis died on December 14, leaving the pair with supplies for a week and a half. They supplemented these by gradually killing and eating the six surviving sled dogs. They killed the last dog on December 28, spending several hours boiling the meat. Mawson, however, didnt stumble upon a supply cache until January 29. How did he survive that long? And why did he describe cooking dog meat on January 10, when the last dog had been slaughtered and cooked weeks before?

Day argues that Mawson must have consumed some of Mertzs flesh, allowing him to stay barely alive until he reached the supply cache. Other historians have disputed this scenario, noting a number of problems with Days work and citing Mawsons own diary, where the explorer noted that he could pull through by [him]self with the provisions at hand if Mertz died. Until Mertzs body, buried somewhere in the Antarctic, is found, the question will likely remain the subject of intense debate.

8 Stephen Thomas

Stephen Thomas was a British multimillionaire noted for his considerable achievements. He made his money in the IT industry. Aside from dominating in the arena of commercial enterprise, Thomas also enjoyed completing grueling physical challenges. He climbed several dangerous mountains and circumnavigated the globe in a yacht. Having survived all of that, Thomas set his sights on reaching a new goal, one of the few goals left that could satisfy his need to continually up the ante. This time, he would sail from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle, the two limits beyond which navigating a yacht becomes extremely dicey due to huge ice masses and freezing waters.

Thomas succeeded yet again in spite of the many things that could have gone horribly wrong. However, his luck soon failed him in a spectacularly cruel and ironic way. After two years of sailing, he celebrated his success and went ashore in Antarctica. He was walking near the British base of Port Lockroy with members of his crew, taking photographs of the scenery, when the ice gave way beneath him and he fell into a crevasse. He died of his injuries soon after.

7 Rodney Marks

The poisoning of astrophysicist Rodney Marks at the South Pole has been referred to as one of the strangest, and most baffling, deaths in the southern hemisphere.

Marks was spending the winter at the Amundsen-Scott base in 2000. He fell seriously ill and eventually died. His body was put in storage. It wasnt until months later that the coroner figured out the cause of death: Marks had died of methanol poisoning. Suicide was ruled out, as was the idea that Marks would have knowingly ingested the poison in a misguided attempt to get high, since alcohol and even cannabis were freely available to him at the base.

Methanol was being used as a cleaning agent on the base, but no one could figure out how toxic levels of it had ended up in Markss body. Syringe marks were found in his arms, leading to speculation that Marks had been murdered. This was fueled by an apparent cover-up on the part of Markss colleagues, who quickly dispersed when spring arrived, before a proper inquiry could be carried out. Later inquiries made by New Zealand police (who had jurisdiction) were met with a wall of silence.

Though described as highly intelligent, Marks was also said to have been a binge-drinking victim of Tourettes syndrome. He was perhaps a prime candidate for angering someone during the long, psychologically draining winter months. Living holed up in an Antarctic base in close proximity with the same people day after day has been known to get the better of people. For example, two men, one with a possibly broken jaw, had to be evacuated in 2007 after a drunken Christmas brawl.

Were unlikely to ever know what really happened in Markss case, since his room was cleaned, potential evidence was thrown away as rubbish, and the findings of the US agencies involved were never released.

6 Barbara Johns

Edward Nelson was a biologist who accompanied Robert Falcon Scott and his men to Antarctica as part of the Terra Nova Expedition from 191012. Nelson did not go along on Scotts ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole, instead staying in his laboratory at Cape Evans and surviving.

Roughly a century later, Nelsons daughter, Barbara Johns, was inspired to revisit Cape Evans and other sites in Antarctica that were important to the Terra Nova mission. Johns spent years planning her pilgrimage and finally left her home in Spain in early 2009. She joined a ship which carried over 40 passengers. South of Macquarie Island, the ship encountered rough seas, and Johns fell in her cabin. She died of head injuries soon after, at age 93. That same evening, passengers sighted their first iceberg.

5 The First South Pole Skydive

Antarctica has a growing tourism trade and leisure industry, and some worry about what impact this might have on the continents pristine environment. A more immediate concern might be the safety of those who travel there. Billing their stunt as the first private skydive directly over the South Pole, the Adventure Network International company was probably more preoccupied with the impact that their event would have on future sales. Nobody expected the jump to end with an impact strong enough to shatter every bone in the human body. Six men made the jump, and three of the mens parachutes either failed to open or failed to open properly.

The skydivers involved were all highly trained and experienced. Safety measures seemed to be in place, so what went wrong? One theory is that the men succumbed to hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen. Hypoxia can result in confusion and dizziness and may well have been induced by the thin air at the jumpers high altitude. Although skydiving from 2,600 meters (8,500 ft) is nothing new, Antarctica is the highest continent on Earth, and the South Pole is already roughly 2,800 meters (9,300 ft) above sea level.

4 Casey Jones

Serious work-related accidents are not uncommon in the Antarctic, and New Zealands government recently commemorated several on-the-job Antarctic fatalities. Deaths by crushing include Andrew Burl Moulder, who was caught between a 20-ton cargo sled and an aircraft loading ramp in 1966. More recently in 2010, a Chinese worker sustained serious abdominal injuries when he was crushed by an out-of-control vehicle.

Some people are unlucky, but Casey Jones, a cook assigned to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, was exceptionally unfortunate in January 1980. Jones was apparently attempting to clear a vertical intake shaft in a fan room. The vent shaft was packed with a column of snow which gave way, falling on top of him like a hammer. Jones was crushed and buried under the weight of it, dying in an otherwise safe, indoor location. Cremated in New Zealand in accordance with his familys wishes, Joness ashes were later scattered from an aircraft flying over the Beardmore Glacier.

3 Carl R. Disch

Carl Robert Disch was a scientist working for the National Bureau of Standards, and he was staying for the winter in 1965 at Byrd Station. He regularly traveled between the main station complex and the radio noise building, following a hand line so as not to get lost. He had traversed this route over 25 times without incident, but on the morning of May 8, for some reason, he did not make contact with the hand line, perhaps due to the seasonal darkness and heavy, blowing snow.

When Disch failed to arrive back at Byrd Station, an initial search of the immediate area was made, and a trail was found, heading west. Further searches that day were hampered by the darkness and bad weather, but a vehicle search set out the following evening. This search found intermittent tracks heading south of the station for a distance of about 6 kilometers (4 mi), leading to a point where they simply disappeared.

According to official reports on the South Pole Stations website, There was no noticeable shortening of stride in these tracks. Disch, who had been dressed for the weather, seemed to be striding purposefully toward something. Perhaps it was the direction in which he imagined the station to be, perhaps he was determined to end his life, or perhaps he was following some sensory illusion or hallucinationnot unheard of in the Antarctic. Searches continued for days, but Disch was never seen again.

2 Mrs. Chippy

Photo credit: Nigel Cross

Mrs. Chippy has the dubious distinction of presumably being the first cat in history to travel toand end up shot to death inthe Antarctic. The cat (who was actually a male) belonged to Henry Chippy McNish, the carpenter aboard Earnest Shackletons ship, the Endurance. McNish was an outspoken, opinionated Scotsman. He questioned some of Shackletons decisions during the 1914 expedition to the Antarctic. Shackleton seems to have strongly resented McNish for challenging his authority.

When the ship became immobilized by pack ice, Shackleton shot McNishs beloved cat, along with the other animals aboard. Some believe this to have been an unnecessary action, motivated purely by spite. It quite possibly was, since Shackleton also refused to recommend McNish for the Polar Medal unlike the rest of his shipmates, even though, by Shackletons own admission, the entire crew would surely have perished without the carpenters foresight and expertise.

It was McNish who modified the lifeboat that was later used to travel roughly 1,300 kilometers (800 mi) to South Georgia Island to obtain help. Without McNishs modifications, the lifeboat would almost certainly never have completed such a journey. Nonetheless, the dishonored McNish ended his days in a rest home in Wellington, New Zealand, and was buried in an unmarked paupers grave.

He was not entirely forgotten, however, and neither was his cat. An Antarctic historian visited him shortly before his death in 1930, and later remarked, He lay there repeating over and over again: Shackleton killed my cat. The Antarctic Society put a headstone on McNishs grave in 1959 (but unfortunately misspelled his surname as McNeish). A life-size, bronze-cast statue of Mrs. Chippy was also set over the grave at that time.

1 Phillipa Gregory

Phillipa Gregory, from England, had been diabetic since the age of five, but she did not let her condition cramp her adventurous spirit. In 2001, at the age of 26, she joined a yacht in Argentina that was heading to Antarctica on a conservation mission.

Gregory had been given the all-clear by doctors. She also had plenty of insulin and equipment to monitor her condition. Nevertheless, when the yacht hit bad weather in the Drake Passage, Gregory and several other crew members became seasick. After several days, she began to lose her eyesight and eventually collapsed and slipped into a coma. A mayday message was sent. The crew were told to give her insulin, but it had no effect.

An investigating police officer from the Falkland Islands concluded that the insulin was ineffective because, tragically, Gregory could not keep enough food in her stomach for the insulin to react with. The coroners report stated that Gregorys death illustrates the problems of controlling diabetes in challenging physiological situations. Just two years later, in early 2003, Will Cross from Pittsburgh became the first diabetic to reach the South Pole.

Enjoy a good mystery and the darker side of human psychology? Check out this authors novel, Jumping Tracks, here and find other stuff here.

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The island country of New Zealand is known for its amazing natural scenery, but people usually focus on what”s above ground. While the mountains, beaches and wildlife are breathtaking, there”s even more stunning sights to be found below the surface.

In the township of Waitomo, on the north island, there is a place that is absolutely mind-bending. At a very special spot, when you look up, it seems like you”re looking at a starry sky, but it”s something else entirely. On the island, there are caves filled with glowing worms that will trick you into thinking you”re starring at the night sky. It”s trippy.

A large population of glow worms produce the dazzling green-blue ambience.

The caves date back to 1887 when they were first explored by native Maori Chief Tane Tinorau and English surveyor Fred Mace.

The caves were already well known to locals at the time, but hadn”t been extensively explored until Tinorau and Mace built a raft to follow the stream deeper underground.

The explorers were amazed by their discovery, now known as “Glowworm Grotto.”

(via Amusing Planet.)

The cave was opened for tourism in 1889 and remains an awe-inspiring attraction for visitors. Judging by the beautiful photos, it”s easy to imagine how much more incredible it would be to see them firsthand!

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If there was a time warp tomorrow and we all got transported into the world of classical myths, most of us would probably die horrendous and peculiar deaths. The percentage of characters in Greek and Roman myths who die peacefully in their beds of old age is practically zero—the vast majority meet gruesome and twisted ends.

10 Procrustes’s Iron Bed

Procrustes was a rogue son of Poseidon who kept an inn between Athens and Eleusis. When travelers asked to spend the night, he would offer them an iron bed and then spring a trap on them. If they were too tall for the bed, he would chop them down to size, and if they were too short, he would stretch them to the right length. The worst of it was that no one ever actually fit the bed: Procrustes kept two beds to make sure.

Eventually, Theseus (son of Poseidon and Aegeus) stopped at the inn on his way to free Athens from the minotaur. Theseus managed to escape Procrustes’s trap and then kill Procrustes by making him fit his own bed.

9 Nisus’s Magic Purple Hair

Ovid’s Metamorphoses explains how Nisus was King of Megara and was betrayed by his daughter (Scylla) when his realm was attacked by King Minos of Crete. It had been decreed by fate that so long as a special strand of purple hair remained on Nisus’s head, he would be invincible. But Scylla fell in love with Minos and decided to help him out by cutting the purple hair from her father’s head while he slept. Without his magic hair, Nisus died, and Megara was conquered.

Unfortunately, it all backfired on Scylla in the end. Minos was unimpressed by her lack of fatherly love and didn’t want anything to do with her. On top of that, she tried to swim after his boat as he left Megara, and her father, who had transformed into an eagle after he died, swooped down, and pecked her to death.

8 Narcissism

Narcissus was the beautiful son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. It was prophesied that he would have a long life—provided that he never saw himself. A boy called Ameinias fell in love with him, but Narcissus did not return these feelings, so Ameinias killed himself in his grief and called on Nemesis to avenge him. As a result, Narcissus spied his reflection in a stream one day and sat there until he starved to death, transfixed by his own beauty. The flower that grew on the spot where he died is his namesake.

7 Sisyphus And The Boulder

Sisyphus was the first king of Corinth, and he was also the most deceitful man who ever lived—so much so that the gods decided he should die by being escorted to Tartarus by Hades himself and sentenced to an eternity of hard labor. However, in a bid for freedom, the sly Sisyphus tricked Hades into accidentally locking himself in his own handcuffs, so Sisyphus thought he’d got off scot-free. But Hades being out of action caused mayhem, as no one could die. In irritation, the gods freed Hades and increased Sisyphus’s punishment. Not only did he have to labor forever, his job would now be eternally frustrating. He was required to roll a boulder up a hill. However, each time he managed to reach the summit, the boulder would roll to the bottom again—and so on for all eternity.

6 Erysichthon’s Hunger

Erysichthon was the impious King of Thessaly, who cut down the goddess Demeter’s sacred grove in order to expand his palace. His name translates to “earth-tearer,” and his profane actions were ultimately his downfall. The crowning glory of the grove was an ancient oak covered in votive wreaths, which were a symbol of Demeter’s generosity. Erysichthon’s men refused to fell it out of respect for the goddess, so Erysichthon grabbed an axe and cut it down himself, killing a dryad nymph in the process. Demeter punished him by cursing him with endless hunger: He ate all the food in the kingdom and spent all his riches buying more. Poverty drove him to sell his daughter Mestra into slavery, and he eventually died devouring his own flesh.

5 Being Slaughtered By A Family Member

Mythology is full of families murdering one another. Euripides’s play shows us how Medea’s husband Jason cheated on her, so she killed their sons to get revenge. King Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the Gods to ask for a better wind on the way home from the Trojan War. Romulus quarreled with his brother Remus and clubbed him to death on the future site of Rome. Oedipus unknowingly killed his father on the way to Thebes. Orestes killed his mother, Clytemnestra, to avenge the death of his father, as Aeschylus tells us in yet another tragedy. Zeus cut his father Cronos into 1,000 pieces with a sickle and scattered the pieces in the deepest part of the underworld. Hercules was driven mad by Hera, so he accidentally killed his whole family. We could go on all day.

4 Eaten By Cyclopes

On his way home to Ithaca, Odysseus and his crew ran into some trouble, some of which involved getting stuck on the island of the cyclopes—huge, savage monsters with only one eye. Odysseus and his men were captured by a cyclops called Polyphemus and locked up in a cave with the cyclops’s flock of sheep—Polyphemus’ stash of fresh-and-ready meals. Odysseus’s men could do nothing but wait in terror for the monster’s arrival at mealtime, when he would pick one or two men at random and munch them up. Fortunately, Odysseus came up with a plan to trick Polyphemus and managed to escape, but it was too late for the men who were already devoured by the one-eyed monster.

3 Washing Sinis’s Feet

Sinis was another scoundrel son of Poseidon and was also related to the royal house of Corinth. He was famous for lying in wait for travelers on a route along the Scironian cliffs and asking them to wash his feet. When they kindly agreed and knelt down at his feet to begin, he would kick them off the cliff and into the black waters below—where a giant turtle lay in wait to devour them. Luckily, like Procrustes, Sinis was killed by Theseus, who catapulted him over the cliff after lashing him to a nearby pine tree (an alternative torture method that Sinis sometimes inflicted on passersby). Today, the cliffs on the western side of Sardinia are still known as the Sinis Peninsula.

2 Meeting The Stymphalian Birds

The Stymphalian birds were the pets of Ares, who had beaks of bronze, the ability to turn their metal feathers into missiles, and highly toxic dung. They pillaged villages across Arcadia until Hercules came along on his sixth labor and frightened them away with a krotala—basically a divine rattle that the god Vulcan had custom-made for him. A huge flock of the birds had gathered at the lake of Symphalos; when Hercules brandished the rattle, the birds took to the skies in fright, and Hercules shot down as many of them as possible with his poisoned arrows. The surviving birds fled, never to blight Arcadia again.

1 Getting The Sphinx’s Riddle Wrong

The Sphinx terrorized Thebes for a quite some time by lying in wait at the gates of the city with a riddle for anyone who wanted to gain passage. She strangled and ate anyone who got it wrong, and as she had the back legs of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the face of a woman, this would probably have been a terrifying way to go. Oedipus eventually cracked the riddle (“Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed? Answer: “A man.”) and caused the Sphinx to throw herself from her high rock to her death.

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Top 10 Significant First Fossils

These could be considered as the most important fossil discoveries in paleontology because they all are theorized by scientists to represent the first appearance of that particular kind of organism on Earth. Regardless of all the theories and scientific value these great discoveries represent and the vast amount of knowledge they have ultimately led to, they are simply a truly fascinating subject to study and are sure to spark the imaginations of many.

10 First BirdArchaeopteryx lithographica

Archaeopteryx lithographica is theorized by paleontologists to be a transitional fossil, or “missing link,” between dinosaurs and modern birds, thus making it the first bird. The fossil was discovered in Germany in 1860 and with its combination of feathers and reptilian features had long been considered the first true bird. Archaeopteryx is the marriage between two words from ancient Greece translating to either “ancient wing” or “ancient feather.”

Before going extinct, Archaeopteryx lived in what is now present-day Bavaria, Germany, during the late Jurassic period about 150 million years ago. This was a time when Europe was much closer to the equator than it is now and thus was an archipelago due to the warmer climate.

Archaeopteryx weighed approximately 0.8–1.0 kilograms (1.8–2.2 lb) and was very comparable in size to a crow or raven. The animal had a tail that was unusually long for its body at 50 centimeters (20 in). Paleontologists theorize that the animal may have had some flight capabilities based on its feathers and wings.

9 First MammalJuramaia sinensis

Paleontologists theorize that a fossil excavated in northeastern China has forced mammal evolution back some 35 million years. The find provides fresh evidence concerning the placental mammals, the earliest ancestors of most mammal species today. Zhe-Xi Luo, a Chinese paleontologist working with a team of scientists headed by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, revealed in Nature magazine that a tiny, shrewlike animal, Juramaia sinensis, existed in China 160 million years ago during the Jurassic period.

Juramaia is thought to be the earliest fossil evidence of a group called the eutherians that came to include all placental mammals — animals that supply pre-birth sustenance to the fetus through a placenta. Being the oldest-known fossil ancestor to placental mammals, Juramaia serves as fossil evidence of the date when the eutherian group diverged from other mammals.

8 First Reptile And Land AnimalHylonomus lyelli

Hylonomus lyelli, which lived 315 million years ago during the late Carboniferous period, is the first known reptile to exist. In addition, it is the first creature known to have adapted to life completely on land. During this time period, also known as the Coal Age or the Pennsylvanian, Hylonomus grew to around 20 centimeters (8 in) in length including the tail. Chiefly insectivores, these reptiles were lizard-like and probably fed on small prey such as snails, millipedes, and other small insects.

It is theorized that females most likely deposited their eggs on land in humid, protected places. Found in petrified stumps on sea cliffs near Joggins, Nova Scotia, the fossilized remains of Hylonomus lyelli are mentioned in On the Origin of Species, the famous book by Charles Darwin.

William Dawson, a geologist and former principal of McGill University, discovered Hylonomus in 1852. The name Hylonomus is a marriage of two words, one from ancient Greece translating to “wood” and the Latin word for “forest mouse.”

A few fossil bones of Hylonomus were discovered inside the remains of some hollow “scale trees,” which were enormous club mosses. Scale trees had diameters of 1 meter (3 ft), grew to be almost 30 meters (100 ft) tall, and were common in swamps and along rivers in eastern North America.

7 First TetrapodElginerpeton pancheni

Dating to the late Devonian period of Scat Craig, Scotland, Elginerpeton pancheni was at first thought to be an unidentified sarcopterygian (fish). But in the early 1990s, the fossils were reexamined by Per Ahlberg, a Swedish paleontologist, who concluded that it was not a fish but a very early tetrapod, or four-legged animal. It is known from fossilized skeletal material that the two oldest tetrapods now known, Obruchevichthys and Elginerpeton, are closely related.

The bone fragments from Elginerpeton consist of a hip and shoulder girdle, fragments from the upper and lower jaw, a tibia, and a femur (upper and lower hind limb). There is an additional fragment that may be part of a humerus (upper forelimb). By extrapolating data from the fragments, the scientists were able to estimate a length for the animal at 1.5 meters (5 ft).

The bones share attributes in common with other tetrapods, which makes the find rather confusing for the scientists. For example, the jaw of Elginerpeton features a mixture of fish and tetrapod features while the limbs and hip share attributes with Ichthyostega, a more amphibious-looking creature. In addition, the shoulder of the animal is very similar to that of the tetrapods Tulerpeton and Hynerpeton, making the animal a literal puzzle for scientists until more fossils are discovered.

6 First InsectRhyniognatha hirsti

Lost in a vault under a museum, Rhyniognatha hirsti, the oldest-known fossil of an insect, was rediscovered. The find forces the origins of winged insects back about 80 million years and could shed light on the evolution of flight.

Discovered outside of Aberdeen, Scotland, Rhyniognatha is a fossilized winged bug that is 400 million years old. Robin John Tillyard, an Australian entomologist, studied the fossil in the 1920s but could not determine whether it was an insect. After that, the fossil ended up in a vault, forgotten, at the Natural History Museum in London.

While doing research for a book, US entomologists David Grimaldi of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Michael Engel from the University of Kansas in Lawrence came across the Rhyniognatha fossil and viewed it under magnification.

In a New Scientist article dated February 11, 2004, Engel said about the find, “Today, our microscopes are vastly better than what Tillyard was using, and when we looked through the scope, we were stunned.” They also said that the animal was far from primitive and had very efficient-looking mandibles, suggesting that it was a voracious eater.

5 First Jawed FishDunkleosteus terrelli

About 300 million years ago, most of northeastern Ohio was covered by a subtropical inland sea teeming with life of all kinds. The oldest, largest, and fiercest predator of the Devonian “Age of Fishes” in these waters was Dunkleosteus terrelli, a fish capable of biting huge prehistoric sharks in half.

Dunkleosteus was up to 6 meters (20 ft) long and weighed in excess of 900 kilograms (2,000 lb). It was equipped with an enormous skull consisting of huge, stout, bony plates that slid back and forth between each other like a massive pair of lethal scissors.

The jaws on this animal were so sophisticated that they would sharpen themselves just from use. The Ohio Department of Transportation began constructing Interstate 71 in 1966 and uncovered an archaeological gold mine of fossils and sedimentary material in Big Creek Valley that still produces magnificent fossil finds today.

4 First Land PlantLiverwort Cryptospores

The first known land plant is now liverwort. The evolution of plants on land got forced back 10 million years to 472 million years when fossils of the earliest land plants were discovered in Argentina. According to a report in the journal New Phytologist, the freshly discovered fossilized specimens are cryptospores of liverworts — simplistic plants with no root or stem systems.

This strongly suggests that liverworts could very well be the original ancestor to all land plants. One of the most profound changes in the climate of this planet was caused solely by the appearance of land plants and the atmosphere they created, which allowed life to exist as we know it.

According to a BBC article dated October 12, 2010, scientist Claudia Rubinstein and a team from the Department of Paleontology at the Argentine Institute of Snow, Ice and Environmental Research in Mendoza, Argentina, discovered the fossilized spores in the Central Andean Basin of northwest Argentina.

The team dates the fossils at 472–499 million years old. The former age record for the earliest-known land plants was also for liverwort cryptospores that were discovered in the Czech Republic and Saudi Arabia. They were dated at a fantastic 461–463 million years old.

3 First CrustaceanCanadaspis perfecta

According to a book entitled The Biology of Crustacea, Canadaspis perfecta is most likely the first and oldest of the crustaceans and very proliferative, existing throughout the fossil record. Named for their discovery in Canadian fossil beds, Canadaspis had a large shell (somewhat like that of a turtle) shielding its upper body with several sharp spines that scientists think served as protection for the eyes. Looking a bit like a lobster or crayfish with no claws, the physical nature of the animal suggests that it spent most of its time on the bottom searching for the morsels of food on which it survived.

It is thought that the crustacean fed by forcing its forked appendages into the sediment while the attached spines filtered out morsels of food from the sediment as it traveled along the bottom. At first, Canadaspis was classified as a crustacean. But there are other scientists who feel that it should be classified as a euarthropod, or “true arthropod.” Ages for Canadaspis perfecta fossils range from an incredible 485–541 million years young.

2 First VertebratePikaia

From the Cambrian period exploded Pikaia, one of the most discussed and exciting finds of the entire Cambrian age and first described by Charles Walcott in 1911. In 1979, Simon Conway Morris discovered an anatomical structure on the fossils called a proto-notochord that would develop into the first true chordates, better known as vertebrates or creatures with spines. However Morris’s suggestion that Pikaia itself was a chordate led to the widely held but incorrect belief that it is the ancestor of all vertebrates, including humans. This caused a huge controversy.

Pikaia is theorized to have had tentacles and an exoskeleton that was segmented like that of some modern insects, which are both characteristics of invertebrates, or creatures without backbones. In 1911, Pikaia was considered to be a type of polychaete, or segmented worm.

Today, scientists consider them to be more like what we know today as lancelets — a flat, fishlike cephalochordate that looks somewhat like a large leech. Not much is known about the animal or how it hunted or ate, but it was most likely a swimming animal able to undulate through the water, possibly feeding on morsels and scraps as it went. The fossils do not demonstrate anything perceived to be a head, which further mystifies scientists.

1 First Evidence Of LifeStromatolites

Stromatolites can be thought of as fossilized mud that is believed to be 2.3 billion years old. Specifically, they are a buildup of sedimentary materials and the bodies of cyanobacteria found in Precambrian strata. In addition to being the oldest fossils known, stromatolites are also the sole source of information about life from the earliest periods on the planet.

Being sheet-like, a single layer of stromatolites may contain biological material stretching back thousands of years. Stromatolites consist mostly of fossilized prokaryotic (single-celled) life, which has always represented the bulk of life on Earth at any time, including today. They are found in sedimentary rock in sheet form, in column-like shapes, and in layers.

Cyanobacteria still thrive today in a wide variety of environments, including rivers, lakes, and even soil. With no DNA-packaging nucleus, they are considered the simplest form of carbon-based life on the planet.

For the first two billion years, the only life on Earth was bacteria and photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Regardless of their simplicity, photosynthetic cyanobacteria were solely responsible for the most profound change the planet has ever experienced. Simply by being photosynthetic, they are the only major source of free oxygen on Earth. So their importance to life on this planet cannot be understated.

Duane lives in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States of America and in “one of the Original 13” as he likes to say, where he grew up with a fascination for collectibles like baseball cards, coins, stamps, and old bottles, just to name a few. Always a self-starter, he has taught himself many different things and has ended up with a large variety of skills and hobbies in both old and new and has recently started putting them to use on the Internet. He has been writing in several capacities for several decades.

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10 Extraordinary Fires With Unexpected Consequences

Fire has set humans apart from the animal kingdom and allowed us to rise to greatness. However, fire is also something that we must handle with extraordinary care. The flames of the past have caused massive destruction, but that destruction sometimes allowed us to take great strides forward as well.

10 Great Salem Fire1914

In summer 1914, approximately 18,000 people — nearly one-half the residents of Salem, Massachusetts — found themselves homeless. On the afternoon of June 25, a fire started in “Blubber Hollow,” an area in the leather manufacturing district unprotected by fire prevention sprinkler systems. Over the next 13 hours, the fire raged, consuming a swath of land 1 kilometer (0.5 mi) wide and 2 kilometers (1 mi) long. Over 250 acres and 1,750 buildings were in ruin, which was nearly one-third of the city.

With so many homeless, something had to be done quickly. The main factors contributing to the blaze had been buildings constructed tightly together and wooden building materials creating fuel for the flames. By July 8, the Salem Building Commission had been created. A new building code was approved by August 20. The city of Salem also enlarged their fire department, and new water sources were created to fight future infernos.

New construction primarily consisted of brick-and-stone structures, with consideration given to more open space between buildings. By July 1917, only three years after the devastation, nearly 1,000 new buildings had been completed, providing housing for the displaced families. The advisory architect for the city noted that there was less overcrowding and that the new buildings had a much greater value than those destroyed by the fire.

9 Great Chicago Fire1871

Although many of us are familiar with the infamous tale of the O’Leary cow kicking over a lantern and causing the greatest fire in Chicago’s history, we may not know much about the aftermath of this conflagration.

In the 100 days leading up to October 10, 1871, Chicago had seen barely more than 3 centimeters (1 in) of rainfall. Combined with high summer temperatures, the lack of rain had left the city extremely dry. Unfortunately, most structures were built of wood, creating a tinderbox ready to ignite.

Undoubtedly, the blaze originated in or near the O’Leary barn, although it is unlikely to have been of bovine origin. The fire sparked on October 8 and raged until October 10, causing widespread destruction of downtown Chicago. The fire spared few victims, leaving a path of destruction 6 kilometers (4 mi) long and 2 kilometers (1 mi) wide. Approximately 17,000 structures were destroyed in the heart of the city, leaving nearly 100,000 people homeless and causing an estimated $200 million in damages.

The rubble and ruins, along with thousands of displaced citizens, led to lawlessness and looting. Martial law was imposed on October 11 and lasted several weeks. In true American fashion, businesses quickly sprang up to help clean up and rebuild the ruined city. Luckily, Chicago’s transportation system had remained largely undamaged, and materials were soon transported to help with the reconstruction efforts.

The removal of downtown Chicago’s wooden structures cleared the way for a handful of architects to lay a modern foundation for the city, including the construction of the world’s first “skyscraper.” This rising from the ashes would cement Chicago as one of the country’s great cities, boosting the population from 324,000 in 1871 to over 1 million by 1890.

Ironically, the current Chicago Fire Department has located its training academy on the site of the initial blaze, the original O’Leary property.

8 The Burning Of RomeAD 64

For many of us, the burning of Rome brings visions of Nero dancing in the flames and infamously playing his fiddle. As this blaze occurred nearly 2,000 years ago, we may never know the exact details that sparked this destructive event. But we do know what happened in the aftermath of the smoldering ruins — some things positive and some quite the opposite.

While rumors abound that Nero was responsible for setting Rome ablaze, he was actually residing in his palace in Antium when the flames started on July 18 in AD 64. By all accounts, when Nero discovered that Rome was on fire, he rushed back to his city of two million people and helped them by directing firefighting brigades and opening private and public places to the masses as areas of refuge.

Even so, the flames — fueled by a city constructed mostly of wooden structures — burned for six days and seven nights. Of the 14 districts of Rome, only four remained intact. Many significant buildings were destroyed, including the 800-year-old Temple of Jupiter Stator.

The aftereffects of the fire were numerous. On the positive side, the vast, overcrowded “slum” sections of the city were rebuilt with more fireproof materials and more common areas for the citizens. The once mostly wooden city rose from the ashes, rebuilt in magnificent marble with wide pedestrian streets and spectacular public works.

Nero also took advantage of the newly available real estate to create a series of villas and palaces within the city that were situated on a newly created park and man-made lake. The opulence of these palaces and the cost of construction eventually led to civil unrest and his ousting a few years later.

The most unfortunate outcome of the burning of Rome landed solidly on a rather obscure religious sect. With many believing that Nero was responsible for the destruction, he needed someone else to blame. He pointed the finger at a small religious sect in the city known as Christians. Nero fed them to the lions in the city’s amphitheaters. He also crucified them and burned them as torches in his newly constructed villas.

7 Great Fire Of London1666

London has burned many times in its long, storied history. However, the fire of 1666 was the most devastating for the City of London, the section located inside the old Roman city wall. More than 13,000 homes were destroyed, along with 89 churches and 52 guild halls. All told, around 430 acres were razed, almost 80 percent of the city proper, leaving around 70,000 of the City of London’s 80,000 residents homeless.

The fire erupted on the night of September 2, 1666, in the bakeshop of Thomas Faynor, a baker for King Charles II. An oven was improperly extinguished, and the heat sparked the fire. At the time, construction consisted of an extremely flammable combination of wood and pitch. The flames soon leaped from the baking district to the riverside wharves and warehouses, which contained timber, hemp, oil, and coal. This fueled the raging inferno, allowing it to burn unchecked for another three days.

Unbelievably, only about 16 human lives were lost in the great fire. One hugely positive impact of the flames was the decimation of the rat population in the city. The plague had been ravishing London since 1665, and the fire wiped out an enormous percentage of the disease-carrying rodents, greatly reducing the spread of the plague.

In the aftermath of the destruction, Charles II appointed renowned architect Sir Christopher Wren and a board of commissioners to redesign the city and construct the now famous St. Paul’s Cathedral. By 1671, 9,000 new buildings had been completed with sturdier construction and wider city streets.

6 Great Baltimore Fire1904

The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 may not seem significant to most of us, but it was instrumental in standardizing US firefighting equipment. It’s suspected that the fire started with a stray cigar or cigarette on the evening of February 7, creating a small fire in the Hurst Building in the business district of Baltimore. The flames spread quickly through the mostly deserted business district before a call arose for local firefighters to respond.

The conflagration became so widespread that calls for help were dispatched to Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and even New York City. The fire eventually covered an 80-block area of downtown. However, when the fire brigades of the neighboring cities arrived, they could offer little help because their equipment wasn’t compatible with the fire hydrants and hoses of Baltimore.

Ultimately, the fire raged for over 31 hours with more than 1,500 buildings of downtown Baltimore destroyed and another 1,000 damaged. The estimated losses amounted to more than $150 million. Luckily, the blaze was confined to the downtown business district, so no lives or residential homes were lost.

The media attention caused by the fire provoked a nationwide outcry against the lack of national standards governing firefighting equipment and codes. This criticism led to the adoption of national sizes for fire hydrant and hose connections.

5 Peshtigo Fire1871

At the same time as the Great Chicago Fire on October 8, 1871, another blaze was raging through Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that was more widespread and deadly but is often overlooked. The Peshtigo Fire, also known as the “forgotten fire,” was the worst forest fire the US has ever recorded.

As mentioned earlier, the 100 days leading up to October 8 had high temperatures and a prolonged drought, causing the forests of Wisconsin to become a mass of tinder ready to catch fire at the slightest spark.

We don’t know what caused that initial spark, but the forest fires in Wisconsin soon became full-fledged firestorms. A firestorm is an incredibly strong fire that creates its own wind systems, with tornado-like walls, cyclones of fire, and winds up to 180 kilometers per hour (110 mph). These firestorms were soon raging through the forests, towns, and cities of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

An estimated 1.2 million acres of land were burned throughout the two states, and about 1,200–2,500 people died. The exact number was not able to be determined because the total loss of life and records in some communities meant that there was no one left alive to identify the dead.

Years later, the knowledge of these fires was used to cause more death and destruction. During World War II, Great Britain and the US were planning bombing raids across Europe and closely studied the combination of conditions (wind, topography, and ignition sources) to artificially recreate the firestorms that had devastated the Midwest in 1871.

4 Great Seattle Fire1889

Until 1889, Seattle was little more than a lumber depot in the Northwest that supplied goods to the coast of California. Nearly every building in Seattle was constructed of wood, the most readily available and cheapest material. But this also made Seattle a prime target for a citywide conflagration.

On June 6, 1889, a tradesman in a woodworking shop was heating a ball of glue when it burst into flames. The fire spread quickly across the sawdust strewn on the floor and engulfed the entire building. The blaze soon jumped to the neighboring liquor store and several saloons. Fueled by large amounts of alcohol and combustible timber, the fire soon overtook the wharves and docks and began moving downtown. Eventually, it destroyed 25 city blocks and 125 acres of the town.

With the quick spread of the blaze, firefighters had a hard time containing the flames. However, the speed of the fire wasn’t their only obstacle. The water supply to fight fires was vastly inadequate, and nearly all of the “piping” used to deliver water was constructed of hollowed-out logs, which were also burning. Water pressures dropped, and the hoses were no longer spraying water. Although the fire eventually burned itself out, estimated losses reached a staggering $20 million.

After the fire, local businessmen and officials came together to create new building codes and firefighting policies, and the town began a rapid reconstruction. Within one year of the fire, much of the downtown area had been rebuilt, and the population of the newly arisen city had increased 33 percent. Seattle was on its way to becoming a modern metropolis.

3 Great Jacksonville Fire1901

Besides the Midwest, Jacksonville, Florida, is the only place we can find the prairie-style architecture made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright. We have the third-largest urban fire in American history to thank for it.

On the afternoon of May 3, 1901, Jacksonville factory workers were relaxing on their lunch break when chimney sparks landed on a pile of drying Spanish moss, igniting the largest fire the Southeast had ever seen. Strong winds spread the fire from building to building through flaming roof shingles which flew through the hot, dry air.

Firefighters used numerous techniques to try to slow the advance of the blaze, from blowing up stretches of buildings to creating firebreaks to dousing buildings before the flames could reach them. But most of their efforts were ineffective, and over 700 acres and 146 city blocks were left in ruins. More than 2,300 buildings had been destroyed, and one-third of the 30,000 city residents were left homeless. It was reported that the smoke plume could be seen as far away as Raleigh, North Carolina.

After the flames died down, renowned New York City architect Henry John Klutho was enlisted to help rebuild the devastated city. At the time, Klutho was heavily influenced by the famous Frank Lloyd Wright and his prairie-style architecture, which can still be seen throughout much of Jacksonville today.

2 Great Fire Of Charleston1838

Charleston, South Carolina, is now known as a center of culture, arts, and architecture. Before 1838, however, Charleston was a city of mostly wooden and brick structures that were built to be affordable. Unknown to residents at the time, their city would soon be filled with Greek columns and Gothic Revival–style churches.

Little is known about the origins of the fire that swept Charleston in 1838 except that it started on the evening of April 27 and blazed until noon the next day. Over 1,000 buildings were damaged, and more than one-fourth of all the businesses within the city suffered damage, with losses of over $3 million.

Architects and city planners saw the destruction as a chance to rebuild the city better than before. Many municipal and business district buildings were constructed in the Greek Revival style with an enormous number of columns and facades. The religious community was also eager to take advantage of the chance to rebuild. Nearly every new church was built in the Gothic Revival style, giving many parts of Charleston a distinctly European flavor. This unique rebuilding has created a city known for its fierce preservation of architectural landmarks and cultural background.

1 First Great Fire Of New York1776

New York City’s first great fire occurred before the US had won independence from the British Empire. In fact, the first great fire is intertwined with the war between the Continental Army and the British forces.

In 1776, New York City was located on the lower island of Manhattan. That September, the British were moving toward the city, and General Washington decided that it would be too difficult to defend New York against the overwhelming enemy forces. The Continental Army withdrew on September 12, and the British arrived a few days later on September 15. Washington considered burning the city before the British could arrive, but the Continental Congress vetoed that idea.

Inexplicably, fire broke out anyway on the morning of September 21. The fire blazed most of the day and destroyed an estimated 1,000 buildings, nearly 25 percent of the city.

British commanders suspected the patriots of arson and arrested more than 200 residents. Although most were eventually released, some were hanged for treason. The British placed the city under martial law until their eventual evacuation in 1783. However, these conditions led to widespread crime and poor sanitation that caused persistent problems for the British during their occupation of the island.

General Washington later wrote of the fire: “Providence — or some good, honest fellow has done more for us than we were disposed to do for ourselves.”

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As humans, we are a paradoxical animal. Our history has been punctuated by scientific discoveries, allowing us to advance and improve the way we live. Simultaneously, we use these very same wonderful breakthroughs to inflict needless pain. Aptly, we call this ‘human nature.’ With all the bad press we give each other, we often lose sight of the good we are capable of. An increasing cultural focus on environmentalism has emphasized the many wonderful forms of life which we have carelessly wiped out. To help bring us back down to Earth, here are ten animals and plants who owe their continued existence entirely to humanity.

10
Head Lice

The common head louse is only able to survive on humans. Many parasites are species specific – we often forget that when one creature goes extinct, so too do dozens of parasites which are species specific to it. Nevertheless, of all the many human-specific parasites, head lice are of interest as they are one of the few from which we benefit. A childhood infestation by head lice, although irritating, is a harmless affair. However, especially in places with poor sanitation, head lice boost natural immunity to the more dangerous body louse which transmits a number of harmful and potentially deadly diseases. Modern civilization has all but destroyed the need for the benefits of head lice, but those who live in poverty still benefit from this natural immunization. As a species, therefore, head lice still help us, and they in turn cannot survive without humans to live on. Although we may not have intended it, simply by continuing to exist we have allowed this species to survive, and even today people benefit from it.

9
Avocados

Many plants rely on animals for seed disposal. The plant covers its seeds with a tasty coating, coaxing hungry animals to eat it and defecate the seeds later on, complete with their own patch of fertilizer. This not only ensures the seeds have good nourishment, but also helps distribute the plant over a wide area. The humble avocado evolved thusly. However, as an avocado seed is comparable in size to a chicken’s egg, one must ask: what kind of animal could possibly pass an avocado seed through its digestive tract? Humans are relatively big animals, and yet the exit for food in our stomachs is only 2mm across. It follows that the animals which were large enough to pass an avocado seed were tremendously larger. These megafauna became extinct about 12,000 years ago. The avocado might have also gone extinct with them were it not for the hungry and industrious peoples of Central America, who carefully propagated the plant themselves by hand. Although unnatural, avocados have survived this way for thousands of years. Most are entirely dependent on H. sapiens for their continued survival. Were humans to stop growing them, avocados would lose their only means of propagation, and perish soon after.

8
Hamsters

Early last century, a zoologist captured several strange and rare rodents in Syria. These had been described a century earlier and were named Syrian hamsters, or golden hamsters. Among them was only one female. Sightings of hamsters decreased after these were captured and they were believed to be extinct in the wild. After studying them and breeding them for several generations to increase their population, a number escaped while the others became the ancestors of today’s pets. Every golden hamster today can be genetically traced to the single female that was caught long ago, and all findings so far indicate that the many wild golden hamsters in Israel are also descended from the original escapees. Were it not for the actions of one biologist, both domestic and wild hamsters would not exist at all.

7
Ginkgos

Long ago, legend says, a Chinese Emperor planted a particular type of tree he was fond of in the Imperial Garden. The royal gardeners helped the tree flourish and it was enjoyed for many lifetimes, as its species typically lives for over half a millennium. Its seeds were used to carefully grow its many progeny. Centuries later, this tree, the ginkgo, had long been considered extinct in the rest of the world, and was studied through fossil records only. As China began to open to the West, it became apparent that the tree known only from imprints in rocks several millions of years old was in fact flourishing thanks to the fondness of an ancient emperor. Today, Ginkgo biloba trees are found around the world, but can be traced genetically to a single tree, or possibly a small group of trees, from nearly 3,000 years ago in China.

6
Silkworms

Bombyx mori, the silkworm, is entirely dependent on humans for the propagation of its species. Despite their name, they are not a worm at all, but actually a larva or caterpillar. Their cocoons are made of silk, which is of great use to humans. They have been bred and used for silk for over five thousand years, during which time their wild counterparts have gradually and naturally ceased to exist. Those which are bred for silk are helpless and even after undergoing metamorphosis, cannot fly or eat. Their wings have become vestigial and their mouthparts are too small for them to use unless carefully fed by a specialist. Worse, as a result of domestication, they have no fear of predators, and so cannot survive in the wild. They must be physically brought together by handlers to mate. Despite this, silkworms enjoy a pampered life due largely to the fact that healthy and well-fed silkworms produce the best silk.

5
Bermuda Petrels

This rare bird lives on the island of Bermuda. When the island was visited by Europeans, the many rats, dogs, and other animals brought along all but wiped out the bird. For over three hundred years, the Bermuda petrel was thought to be extinct. In 1951, 18 birds were unexpectedly discovered nesting on the coast, and were immediately put under legal protection. Even in an ideal situation, any species reduced to a mere 18 members has a bleak and unlikely future. The nests were isolated from the rest of the island with walls to prevent other wildlife interfering with the precarious situation, and the careful creation of more nest sites by conservation workers has helped this species steadily increase in number over the years. Volunteers rushed to save the birds at considerable risk to themselves during a hurricane in 2003, and many destroyed nest sites were rebuilt for the birds, who would have perished if left to fend for themselves during the disaster. There are now about 250 Bermuda petrels. With the continued care and work by humans, the Bermuda petrel may again one day number in the thousands.

4
Jellyfish Trees

This tree is named after the center of its flowers, which resemble jellyfish tentacles. It was thought to be extinct until late last century; since then, it exists only in a few small, tentative populations which are carefully guarded in national parks in Seychelles. It is an ancient plant which is poorly adapted to today’s climate. The population has dwindled naturally for thousands of years due to natural changes in the Earth’s climate, although it has persisted to the point that three trees were found to still be struggling to survive in 1970. These are now protected by law and botanists toil to understand how to help it. Its seeds cannot germinate in the wild, and only under very humid conditions have humans been able to purposefully sprout them. Today the population has risen to fifty, but this tree is sadly poorly adapted both to the modern climate and without constant human intervention it cannot cope with competition from its better-adapted peers.

3
European Bison

Like the Bermuda petrel, this is another animal which humans drove to near-extinction. The European bison is the largest land animal in Europe, but was completely annihilated in the wild due to hunting. Although it had been traditionally hunted for its pelt and horns since Palaeolithic times, a modern increase in hunting resulted in a dwindling numbers. Soldiers in the First World War hunted them by the hundreds for their meat, despite being fully aware of their endangered status, and the last wild European bison were shot in 1927. Fortunately, several remained in zoos and menageries. These immediately caught the attention of the German biologist Heinz Heck. Heck proposed that since modern animals contain the genes of their extinct ancestors, they could be purposefully bred to produce their long-gone forebears. As ancient animals, Heck did not want to see European bison die out. He helped breed them from only twelve individuals to over 4,000 today, which have been reintroduced into the wild. Unfortunately, due to their small genetic pool, the species is highly susceptible to a number of diseases and the fertility of the males is gradually decreasing, so they still require human help to stave off extinction.

2
Wollemi Pines

Although not a true pine tree, this plant was known only through fossil records from millions of years ago. Unexpectedly, in 1994 a park officer happened to notice one while walking in the Wollemi National Park in Australia. It was quickly realized that this tree was a living fossil, and that although not extinct, it very nearly was. Fewer than one hundred individual trees were left, and many of these were sick, dying, or unable to reproduce. Mathematical models have confirmed that without human intervention, this species would have been truly extinct in less than a millennium. A recovery program now legally protects the tree, and many thousands have been successfully cultivated. They have more recently been promoted throughout New South Wales, Australia, as a more local alternative to Christmas trees; the Wollemi pines are kept potted throughout the festival and are planted at its conclusion.

1
Mongolian Wild Horses

Most wild horses today are feral descendants of domesticated ancestors. However, the Mongolian wild horse has never been domesticated and is the only remaining truly wild horse on Earth. Ancient cave paintings show that humans hunted these creatures as far back as 20,000 years ago. However, since then the climate has naturally warmed as we move into an interglacial period. This has caused their habitat to shrink and the horses have had a decreasing population for millennia. After the Second World War, all wild Mongolian wild horses died indirectly due to wartime habitat destruction or directly through being hunted for food by desperate German soldiers. The existing zoo populations also diminished, and by 1945 only 31 horses remained. Of these, 9 were able to be bred and we have carefully brought their population up to 1800 today. Of these, 300 have been reintroduced to nature reserves in Mongolia and China at the places where they were last seen in the wild. They are now fastidiously protected and the species is expected to recover.

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Thylacine

Although there are many species which humans have created over the years (notably most hundreds of domestic creatures), there are few which have actually died out that we can bring back. The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is an example of one such animal. It was the largest living carnivorous marsupial and had gone extinct several thousand years ago everywhere in Australia except on the island state of Tasmania. Its numbers were there still falling, due to disease and the gradual extinction of its usual prey species, when European settlers arrived. Their hunting and domestic dogs accelerated the decline of the thylacine. The last one died in a zoo in 1930. However, preserved specimens contain enough DNA that scientists are confident the animal may one day be revived. With the advancement of human technology, in the future we may be able to bring back this unique animal. Nothing could be more human than to advance our own species so that we may help another.

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Even though science has pushed our understanding of the living world to new heights, there are still some things that just plain baffle us. It seems that the more we uncover about life on this planet, the deeper the mysteries grow.

10Cows Always Face North Or South While Eating

Most people dont give much thought to grazing cows, but when a team of scientists went through thousands of Google Earths satellite images of cows, they stumbled upon a detail that we have missed for millennia: Cows will stand along the Earths magnetic polesfacing north and southwhenever theyre grazing or resting. The pattern remained consistent regardless of wind or other factors, and nobodys quite sure why.

While some animals are known to contain an internal compass, this is the first time its been found in a large mammal. Another weird thing is that the nearer they are to the poles, the less accurate they get with the orientation. Scientists dont know if the phenomenon is related to navigation or some miscalculated attempt at warding off predators, though it appears that it may have a purpose because of the consistency with which it was observed among cows across six continents. The phenomenon may have an effect on agricultural production, as cows made to stay in an east-west orientation must be affected in some way, though nobody can say how.

9Why Some Mammals Moved Back Into Water

We know that marine animals moved out of the water and developed limbs to crawl the Earth. It was the sensible thing to do, as the land regions contained a large amount of untapped resources ideal for successful evolution. But why some of those animalslike the immediate ancestors of whales and sealsmoved back into the water remains unknown.

For one thing, it is evolutionarily much more difficult for land animals to move into the sea than vice versa, as learning how to swim for a walking animal takes a lot more energy. Its something that has perplexed scientists for a long time. Sea mammals developed the far more efficient method of navigating by tails instead of paddling much later in the course of their evolution, which makes one wonder: Why go through all that trouble in the first place? It remains one of the biggest mysteries of evolution facing modern science.

8Alkaloids In Plants

Plants often produce substances that have a lot of cooland sometimes terrifyingeffects on the animals that consume them. Alkaloids, as they are called, are naturally occurring substances in plants as well as animals, one of the popular ones being morphine. About 7,000 different types of alkaloids have been identified in plants, and even though we have been able to study the chemicals extensively, were still not quite sure why theyre there to begin with.

These are strong substances that elicit a variety of responses when consumed by other animals. In the case of the poppy plant that produces morphine, some experts believe that its useful for keeping predators away, although how morphine, a substance thats very effective at reducing pain, keeps predators away is anybodys guess. Some believe that, instead of external reasons, they might be useful for regulating the metabolism of the plants themselves.

7Why Flowers Are Everywhere

Flowering plants form a class of plants called angiosperms, and as you may have noticed, theyre everywhere. What may come as a surprise, however, is that this was not always the case. Flowering plants took over other plant types in a quick time period about 400 million years ago, and as a result they constitute about 90 percent of all plant species today.

The problem worried Charles Darwin so much that he called it an abominable mystery. Rapid evolution of flowers shortly after their origins ran directly against his theories of slow evolution through natural selection. And there is nothing evolutionarily beneficial about flower-producing plantsfor the nutrient cost of making flowers, the plant could invest in growth or other things that could put them higher on the evolutionary ladder. Because plants dont leave any fossil records when they die, it has been difficult to determine how this hobo species came from nowhere and so quickly conquered everything else.

6Why There Is So Much Diversity Near The Equator

If you go from the colder areas of the planet toward the equator, youll find that life gets more diverse. It was about 200 years ago that a Prussian explorer, Alexander von Humboldt, first figured out that biodiversity increases as you approach the equator. Natural life as well as human culture becomes more diverse and vibrant, and so do the diseases. Whenever you hear about deadly virus outbreaks in Africa or South America, its not just because of poor health care in underdeveloped countriesthe viruses and bacteria that cause those diseases are simply much more active and diverse in southern countries compared to northern ones.

Youd think that we would know for sure why it happens, but apart from some theories, science is divided on it. There are about three dozen theories to answer the big question, but given the sheer number of the life forms were talking about, it has been nearly impossible to reconcile all the hypotheses into a single conclusion.

5Paradox Of The Phytoplankton

Phytoplankton are a class of organisms found in large water bodies and include a wide variety of different subspecies. They are essentially plants that float, and theyve been discovered in water systems throughout the world. It is a hugely diverse group, and its the sheer diversity of these organisms that flies in the face of evolution and natural selection. The lack of resources makes it impossible for such a large number of different organisms to survive in an ecosystem without killing each other off. Yet somehow, theyre still here.

The problem is not just restricted to phytoplankton, either. Water bodies abundant in nutrients have been proven to have a lower diversity of species than the ones lacking them. It is known as the paradox of enrichment, as higher nutrients should mean higher diversity.

4How Argentine Ants Sustain A Colony Across Continents

Photo credit: Penarc

On the surface, Argentine ants look like regular ants. But theyre possibly the only species apart from us that has managed to colonize across three continents. All three super-colonies of Argentine ants in Europe, South America, and Asia consist of ants that share the same genetic traits and are essentially the same ant population. Because the geographical range of these colonies is mind-bogglingly huge, the social structure of these super-colonies has also baffled science for some time now.

The ants immediately recognize their brethren whenever put together, but are aggressive with ants from other species. Apart from that, the genetic code of the ants of today hasnt changed a lot for thousands of years. Thats weird because organisms outside their native environment usually evolve rapidly, which hasnt been the case for Argentine ants.

3The Mysterious Human Ancestor

The lineage of modern humans has been well-studied over the years, and even though the first humans emerged a long time ago, we seem to have a good idea about our origins. Or thats what we thought until scientists discovered traces of a whole new type of ancient human ancestor in the DNA of a now-extinct species.

When scientists studied the DNA of Denisovans (Denisova hominins, a hominid species closely related to the Neanderthals and named after the caves in which they were first found, they found traces of a mystery species which science hasnt quite been able to identify yet. While there is a penetrating mystery surrounding the Denisovans themselves, we at least know who they were and where they came from. The same cannot be said for the unknown species with whom they bred about 30,000 years ago, a species that left a distinct imprint on the Denisovan DNA. Basically, all we know is that they provided Denisovans with a weird set of teeth not found anywhere else in the living world.

2Animals That Can Live Without Oxygen

Photo credit: Carolyn Gast

Nearly every organism on Earth lives with the help of oxygen in some way, either by consuming it or producing it. That was the reason everyone was shocked when the first oxygen-free animals were found deep in the Mediterranean Sea. While some bacteria and other simple organisms can live without oxygen, the phenomenon was unheard of among complex, multicellular animals. The newly discovered creatures are from the Loricifera phylum, a class of tiny animals that once used to live on oxygen but eventually adapted to the new environment when oxygen levels dropped and were replaced by salts.

No complex organism has previously been known to live in oxygen-free environments, and we have no idea about their evolutionary history. More research could offer us a look into marine life before the oceans had any oxygen, some 600 million years ago.

1Sexual Reproduction

Apart from some microbes and plants, nearly all the living things in the world reproduce sexually. It is something that we take so much for granted that we dont realize how much of an evolutionary anomaly it is. An entire half of a speciesthe malesare unable to produce any offspring at all while still using up the same amount of resources from the environment. Why go through so much effort to develop a mechanism that is a clear disadvantage in the long run?

One of the most favored theories is that sex helps breed out harmful mutations, but that doesnt seem to be the case. When scientists studied 700 genes of various organisms, they found the number of harmful mutations to be a whopping 0.5 per individual per generation. For the drawbacks that come with it, that is not enough to justify sexual reproduction. As much as we like to have it, sex remains something that we still dont quite understand.

You can check out Himanshus stuff at Cracked, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

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You know you”re not supposed to believe everything you hear, but sometimes we all get a little gullible. Myths and old wives tales about our bodies have been around for ages telling us things that seem to make sense, but are totally false. And new myths pop up every day. Take a look at some of these before telling someone the not-so-gospel truth.

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One thing people often think about while traveling in cold weather is that it can always be worse. While that”s true for most of us, it”s not true for the people in this village. Photographer Amos Chapple took some incredible shots of Oymyakon, Russia, also known as “The Coldest Village on Earth.” As much as you”re going to want to look at these pictures, perhaps throw on a sweater first. This place is so cold that you can get a chill just from looking at pictures of it.

The “Road of Bones” is the only way to get to Oymyakon.

“Oymyakon, The Pole Of Cold.”

Feeling cold yet?

The average January temperature for Oymyakon is -50C (-60F).

Yikes.

The people of Oymyakon use outhouses because the ground is too frozen to install any sewage system.

The marketplace is almost exclusively meat and fish, as crops are hard to come by.

Even those cows look cold.

Better get them inside the shelter.

If you”re not inside of a heated garage, don”t even think about turning off your car”s engine. The cold is so intense that it simply won”t be able to start back up again.

One of the few stores in town.

The coal heating plant that keeps the villagers warm.

Tries to, at least.

Hey, just because you”re cold doesn”t mean you can”t be fashionable.

Even the shortest trips must feel like epic voyages in that weather.

It looks like it”s time to get some snow boots.

A small heated trailer.

Not everyone minds the cold.

(via Amos Chapple, H/T BoredPanda)

Forget getting a chill. I think I got frostbite from looking at these pictures. If you liked what you saw above, warm up with some of Chapple”s other work from plenty of other (warm) places, which you can see on their website.